英语资讯
News

How this little piggy goes to market

Source: 恒星英语网  Onion  2007-03-27   English BBS   Favorite  


直接点击下载音频[保存到本地收听] 

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

For Chinese, this is the Year of the Pig. So this is probably as good a time as any to talk about the different kinds of production systems for raising pigs.

One kind of operation is called a farrow-to-wean farm. The animals are born, or farrowed , in a farrowing barn. Pigs usually give birth two times a year. Each time they have about eight to twelve piglets.

The piglets drink milk from the mother sow for three to four weeks, or until they weigh between four and a half and seven kilograms. After they are weaned from their mothers, they are sold.

At another kind of operation, producers raise pigs for about six weeks. When the animals weigh eighteen to twenty-seven kilograms, they are sold to a finish farm.

A third kind of farm is the farrow-to-finish operation. Pigs are born there and stay there. The hogs are brought to market when they reach between 90 and 114 kilograms.

These three basic production systems used in the United States are described at pork4kids.com, an industry Web site.

Young hogs raised for meat are called feeders. They feed on corn, wheat, soybeans and other grains.

Pigs need protection from heat, cold, rain and snow. Did you know that pigs can get sunburned? They also need enough space to move around easily. Some farmers and activists for animals say pigs do better outdoors in a pasture or yard than in crowded pens.

People who raise pigs say the animals are "escape artists," so a good strong fence is important. The smell from their waste can also be a problem. Some farmers spread the waste on cropland and plow it under immediately to help control the smell.

But producers have to be careful with untreated waste. It can pollute groundwater and cause other environmental and health problems.

To meet demand in the United States, producers keep about sixty million hogs at any one time. Most of these are in operations with more than five thousand pigs.

The world's largest producer of pork is China, followed by Mexico. The United States is third. Pigs provide about twenty-five percent of the American meat supply. About five percent of that is imported. But the United States is also a leading exporter of pork and pork products.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. Transcripts and audio files of our reports are at VOAspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

farrow : to give birth to a litter of piglets(下猪崽)

sow  : 大母猪


将本页收藏到:
上一篇:Investors count their losses after a rough week
下一篇:How this little piggy

最新更新
论坛精彩内容
网站地图 - 学习交流 - 恒星英语论坛 - 关于我们 - 广告服务 - 帮助中心 - 联系我们
Copyright ©2006-2007 www.Hxen.com All Rights Reserved